I think the "liberals" that are defined in articles like these are almost non-existant. This is not the average viewpoint of someone who is of liberal mind-set. Those are the thoughts of extremists on the liberal side. (Believe it or not, there are also extremists on the conservative side). This generalization of liberals is false. Plain and simple. If you want to call Extreme Liberalism a mental disorder, I will agree. Just as I will agree if you want to say anyone who is anything to the extreme is suffering from some form of mental disorder (extremism is VERY rarely a good thing).

So.... I suppose in a way I agree. Do not let extremists run the country. Extreme Liberals, Extreme Conservatives, Extreme Christians, Extreme Buddhists (hehe... though I think those are nearly impossible to find.. or at least any that would try to run a country)... etc. But also don't go defining a whole group of people by those extremists you'll find. Their voices may be the loudest but they do not speak for everyone.

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This isn't actually an article. It's a bit from one of his books. A book I doubt you'll ever be interested in reading.

Anyways, he's not talking about certain liberals. He's talking about the general differences in the respective conceptions of the nature of man, the nature of the world, and the nature of causation, knowledge, power, and justice. The general differences between them and people who are more conservative.

These general differences of thought and analysis apply to MOST on BOTH sides. That you've failed to understand the actual underlying topic of this bit from a book of his, isn't really of any interest to me. If you'd like to dismiss what is written as "not really about anybody that exists" then I suppose there's not much more required of you.

You say:

Those are the thoughts of extremists on the liberal side.

and

This generalization of liberals is false.

But offer nothing about how you came to the conclusions you CAME to.


Very good. You're against extremeists as are most of us. I offered the writing to possibly stimilate discussion on the PARTICULARS of the writing itself and what is said in it. You manage to skate right past much of it by dismissing it as mostly against a few extremeists and not worth making much MORE note of. If you aren't interested in discussing what is said there's not much more to DO I guess. We seem to agree in general terms on everything ELSE so .......................

I really agree with this. I have often heard people say that life was better back in the 40's and 50's, that people were better, more decent. Which I will agree with also. Then someone will say, and I believe I've heard Jon Stewart say this, "Are you kidding? What about segregation? Yeah, we were so much better back then weren't we dumbass." The first person never said that we had it perfect, but holy hell, people were a lot nicer to eachother and we didn't have nearly the social problems we have now. You still had your ass holes back then, but the amount of truly good people, who cared about their neighbors and civic duties outweighed them. As soon as we began outing traditions that all started going down hill. It's like they think they can disprove thousands of years of human experience just because we are "smarter" now.

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Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars. ... I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask no one to live for me, nor do I live for others. I covet no mans soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

Ayn Rand, Anthem.

That's exactly it. And they'll always bring up one of the negatives of those times in order to keep us distracted and unaware of the problems in todays society. Problems that were brought to you BY them. By their utopian ideas that they knew how to fix everything so that everyone could be "free" and "happy" and "content".

That their "solutions" ALWAYS lead us to larger and more difficult PROBLEMS must be swept away SOMEHOW. If you pay attention you can clearlyy see the many creative ways the distract and hide their consistently failed ideas.